


Somewhere to Belong

by Riesx



Series: Road to Ruin [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, F/M, Redemption, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-14
Updated: 2012-11-14
Packaged: 2017-11-18 16:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riesx/pseuds/Riesx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The beginning and ending lines are from the song "Somewhere I Belong" by Linkin Park</p></blockquote>





	Somewhere to Belong

//When this began  
I had nothing to say  
and I'd get lost in the nothingness inside of me  
I was confused  
and I let it all out to find/ that I'm  
not the only person with these things in mind  
inside of me  
But all the vacancy the words revealed  
is the only real thing that I've got left to feel   
Nothing to lose   
Just stuck/ hollow and alone  
And the fault is my own  
and the fault is my own//

 

A flash of flame in the dark, the crackle of ignited clove and Dawn   
inhales the sickly sweet smoke, letting it burn the back of her throat.   
She exhales a little puff and tilts her head, looking up into the grey   
night sky, suddenly wanting to be anywhere else than where she is.   
This anywhere is a run-down, gaseous little 24-hr. truck stop in the   
proverbial middle of nowhere and she is pretty much alone. Alone   
unless she wants to count the insane dead man in her car. 

Red and green neon glow brightly in small pools of water dotting the   
dilapidated asphalt and if she looks into them hard enough, she   
thinks she might be able to see a reflection. But vampires have none,   
she reminds herself. All she can make out is a lonely teenage girl   
smoking death. Being a female and well, herself, she can't begin to   
imagine living (dying) without a without a mirror of some kind. Not   
that she was ever vain, just conscious of appearances. Cause really,   
no one was ever going to ask her out if she looked like shit. There   
were a million good reasons, she knew, why many boys were afraid   
to approach her in high school. But none of them had to do with her   
looks.

Dawn was a person who carried the weight of her problems in her   
eyes, who could laugh at pain, who could dance sorrow away and   
still remain pretty. But she could never, not once, forget anything.   
And that's what scared some about her. Not the smoking, or the tight   
clothes, or the shrill laugh tinged with weariness. No, she was too   
fucking complicated. She was made up green energy, a tool almost   
used to destroy the entire universe. Not many were aware of that fact,   
but they could probably sense it. A subconscious detection felt at   
just the sight of her. 

Two year's passing and a buttload of demons, near-apocalypses and   
death have made it easier for her to accept what she is. Before she   
left Sunnydale, the Scoobies seemed to have all but forgotten those   
things and just accepted the fact that she was Dawn, kid sister of the   
Slayer. Not good for anything unless you needed the five-finger   
discount. Not good enough to go on regular patrols, only every   
second Tuesday and right by Buffy's side ALWAYS.

So after getting busted for the shoplifting, Dawn had decided to rebel   
in other ways. Smoking cloves with Rachel behind the school utility   
building, cussing up a storm in front of anyone and anything who   
was there, having a few mindless, purely sexual relationships in her   
latter teenage years. By the time she turned eighteen she had just felt   
old, tired and so damned alone. No one paid the background noise   
any attention. And that's all that she had become, really. That tinny   
annoying music filtered into elevator shafts and shopping malls,   
getting on your very last nerve. But if you tried hard enough, it could   
be shut out. Just another part of the day until you find yourself   
humming on the way home and think, SHIT, if it would only go   
away.

It wasn't until Tara died (fucking rat bastard FUCKING piece of shit   
DAMN him to HELL), Willow turned all sorts of evil and Spike   
disappeared that she started to wonder when it would be her turn   
again. It felt like they were all stuck on this extremely morbid game   
show and that at any moment the wheel would start spinning,   
eliminating those the pointer landed on. One turn down, many more   
to go. And Dawn couldn't stand feeling helpless, not ever. But that's   
all Sunnydale had become, the cesspool of her dispondence, so upon   
graduation she had given herself a mission. A reason, if not to want   
to live, then at least to have something to DO. A frickin' purpose that   
didn't have to deal with anyone but herself.

Except for HIM. 

Fucking Spike. Stupid (second EVER) vampire with a soul.

She takes another puff and coughs out into the atmosphere,   
squinting into the passenger side to make sure that he is still there.   
Of course he is, but she sometimes feels that maybe he's just an   
illusion. That she lost her mind halfway down the highway and she's   
just fooling herself with a whole ton of hope and crazy. But he stirs,   
his shape shifting in the bland miasma of the quilt Dawn snatched   
from Mom's old closet, the aroma of mothballs and faded perfume   
wafting out of the cotton. 

She's only afraid of him when he sleeps. He never seems more   
dangerous to her than when he's still, a feral creature holding back   
until ready, coiled for the next attack. She reminds herself of this   
constantly, erasing most of the trust he'd previously instilled in her.   
Because no matter how much of a crush she had on him when she   
was fourteen, no matter how many times he had saved her life //no   
words passed between them except her short plea of "No!" after   
sensing the apologetic gaze for what it was and he kept falling falling   
falling // no matter how GOOD he wanted to become....some images   
just *stuck*. 

Like the one of Buffy.

Buffy bleeding and crying on the bathroom floor.

She had looked like a fragile creature with the heart ripped out,   
metaphorically speaking. Like a shattered China doll. A doll that   
Spike had lain waste to. At the time (and due to much of Buffy's   
pleading) Dawn had been mature enough to forgive, but not so much   
as to forget. Some images would *always* stick with her. She   
supposes the memories of even this day will fade in her mind with   
the turning of constant time like just about everything and everyone   
else. Hell. Even thinking about Tara nowadays isn't half as bad,   
although sitting for hours in that empty house with her body wasn't   
near enough of a good-bye.

All that's left are lingers of the people who have passed through her   
short existence: the scent of Riley's Old Spice that *still* lingers on   
some of Buffy's clothes, Faith's sexy smirk, Angel's mysterious   
presence, Cordy's blue fuzzy mini-skirt. Just bits and fragments that   
hold the past together. On a rare good day Dawn can see her dead   
mother's face perfectly //where did she go, Buffy?//. It's amazing she   
even has all of that, really, when she's not even supposed to exist.   
She sometimes wonders why she was given memory by the Mystic   
Old Monks when all was supposed to be obliterated in that non-  
existent apocalypse. She fears that one day it will all fade away and   
only the blanks will remain. 

And then there's Spike, the one person (thing) who never treated her   
indifferently until he goes off to fall in love with and fuck her sister.   
And she *knew* exactly when it started. The Scoobies were so so   
ignorant, but Dawn was her *sister* for Christ's sake. No matter   
how much mystic shit she was made of, part of her contained Buffy's   
blood and the connection was there, like it or not. The side effects of   
puberty and teenage angst were all behind her now, and she had felt   
ennui settle in like a steel weight in her stomach. A invisible pressure   
on her soul that squeezed and squeezed until she had wanted to   
scream it all out. ALL of it. Her whole entire rotted life. 

A chill wind alights and she comes back out of her mind, a little   
worse for the wear. Her fingers burn and she releases the forgotten   
clove, letting it flee to the sodden asphalt, watching the crimson   
slowly smolder into grey as it extinguishes. She thinks of a fitting   
metaphor, but keeps it silent, even to herself. Dawn hasn't gotten   
much sleep the past few days, but it hasn't affected her alertness.   
Much. Because she can make out the muffled whimpers through the   
dark-stained glass, see the vampire's pain in the shiny blue eyes that   
now peer into the semi-darkness, searching for her presence. 

She almost runs away again. Almost.

 

//I want to heal  
I want to feel   
What I thought was never real  
I want to let go of the pain I've held so long  
(Erase all the pain till it's gone)  
I want to heal   
I want to feel  
Like I'm close to something real  
I want to find something I've wanted all along  
Somewhere I belong//

**Author's Note:**

> The beginning and ending lines are from the song "Somewhere I Belong" by Linkin Park


End file.
